putsborough 29/8/8, cross county fishing

[pingu]

after a manic drive back from london, i made it to the tackle shop for some bait and joined Si and a good few others of ESAA s for a competition at putsborough on north coast( west end wollocombe bay)

weather was great but this meant that a surf beach as pretty much flat calm

we were fishing tide down and then 2 hour up ( 8pm -2am)
set up as far left as could and out went baits
1 rod 2/0 pennel for ray/bass
other wishbone size 2 for anything else( flatties ??)





and before you knew it you found yourself 20 yrds away from the waters edge, I have never seen water dissapear this quick before
so we just kept walking forward

this was after only 10 minutes


at last i saw the smallest of bites and i had a fish
and brought in a pretty smalleyed
unfortunately at 33cm it was undersized
took this pic as shows how well camoflaged it is against sand


Taff soon had a smalleyed as well again undersised, and then a dog to weigh in
Si was blanking badly
I missed one of those unmissable ray bites where the rod rattles then slowly pulls down

and unfortunately that was it for our end of beach

people nearer the centre had had better ray with at least 2 at 7lb being recorded
I will add others as and when i find out as we did shoot off then as knackered , i did hear of a smoothy and schoolie bass as well

whilst packing up i found myself sinking into the sand and lost balance, and in nearly dropping rods made a grab for them so as didnt get them all sandy and so headbutted the tripod

what a twat

hopefully the bruising will go before next week

crawled into pit at 4 am

kids woke me up at 7 deep joy

now where to take all this spare bait

dave

[mithrandir]

Are you sure that was a tripod strike and not Mrs P with a frying pan???

[pingu]

yes mike she always hits where it dont show bruises

[Greenheart]

Hope you did'nt damage the Tripod mate?
Oh, & wheres the Ray pic? or is it so well camoflaged that I missed it?

[Norfolkboy]

Nice little ray there, Dave. Hope the head heals soon

[Fishing Forum Admin]

A ray is a ray so well done mate

[monkey nuts]

nice one m8 ,

[lazy hooker]

well done

i'm actually amazed you caught as the photos look as if you forgot to take your reels!!!!

unlucky on the forehead too

john

[fishypaul]

unlucky mate,looks a nice stretch of beach,

[pingu]

Damn reels thats where i went wrong

also found out that mate taffy (who was 40 yrds to my left) won it by adding a 4 1/2lb ray in dying minutes to the doggie to outscore the 7lb ray( we had packed up a little early as decided no fish there by then )

well done mate


dave